ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE, ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE, AND CONNECTEDNESS TO NATURE ARE POSITIVELY CORRELATED

Abstract

The current human demand for energy and natural resources is causing severe environmental destruction and climate change. The levels of demands and negative externalities are not distributed equally at all scales. The goal of this study is to investigate factors that influence environmental perspective and thus behavior. I distributed a survey online (n=502) to collect respondents' sociodemographic information as well as measure their empathy, childhood nature exposure, connectedness to nature, environmental attitude, and environmental knowledge by calculating the means of their agreement with certain sets of statements. I analyzed the data for correlations across populations. Results showed positive relationships between environmental knowledge and environmental attitude, childhood nature exposure and connectedness to nature, connectedness to nature and environmental knowledge, and connectedness to nature and environmental attitude. Females showed higher mean empathy scores than males. Respondents who lived in rural areas as a child had higher childhood nature exposure scores than those from urban areas. People with doctorate's and master's degrees showed higher mean environmental attitude and knowledge scores. When investigating age, I found that younger people (18-39) are more concerned and knowledgeable about climate change than older people (40-69). Younger people (18-39) and people with master's and doctorate's degrees showed higher agreement scores than other age groups and education types for the statements that people of color and people of low economic status are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards than their counterparts. However, the mean agreement score of all survey respondents was higher for the statement regarding financial status than that regarding race. The mean agreement scores of all survey respondents was low for statements regarding the importance of ecosystem services to human well-being and the economy. Lastly, high levels of spirituality were associated with high levels of nature connectedness and empathy. Findings indicate that exposure to nature, connectedness to nature, environmental knowledge, and environmental attitude are interconnected and positively correlated. Efforts to improve these will improve the others as well as the health of the planet and people. Due to the complexity of these variables and self-reported nature of this study, it is recommended that further research be conducted for additional support.